The Ultimate Disney Classic Animated Film Guide: 2010-2014

In the first decade of the 21st Century, Walt Disney's animation department had frequently tried to change their image, only to find little success with the films they were making. Disney's animated films had included Treasure Island in space, Chicken Little with aliens and even a film about cows. Consequently the father of all animation studios was outperformed at the box office by animations by rivals Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky Studios. Then John Lasseter was appointed Chief Creative Officer of Disney, and he had a revolutionary idea.

What if, instead of constantly trying to reinvent themselves, Disney instead concentrated on making the films they traditionally did well? So, as they had had success with films about princesses in the 1930s, 1950s, 1980s and 1990s, why not embrace films featuring princesses and revisit one of their most beloved characters?

Suddenly the audiences that had stayed away through the constant chopping and changing returned in droves, making one film in particular the must-watch film of 2014.

The Classics

In the last 77 years, the Walt Disney Studio has released over 50 animated films it has labelled 'Classics'. The first 49 of these were made between 1937 and 2009.

50. Tangled (2010)

Directors

Nathan Greno & Bryon Howard

Plot

Princess Rapunzel is born with magical hair which can heal and prevent ageing, but only as long as the hair is uncut. She is kidnapped as a baby by Mother Gothel, who wishes to use Rapunzel's magic to stay young. Mother Gothel hides her in a hidden tower and claims to be her mother. Every year on her birthday the people of the kingdom light lanterns in the hope that their princess will return. 18 years later the tower is discovered by a thief called Flynn Rider who has stolen Rapunzel's rightful crown and is looking for somewhere to hide. Rapunzel discovers the crown, but not recognising it, will only give it back to Flynn if he agrees to help her leave the tower and journey to where lanterns come from.

Length

100 minutes

Setting

Unknown mediæval kingdom

Fairy tale Castle

Rapunzel's Tower

Royal Castle

Wicked Witch

Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy)

Perky Princess

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore)

Animated Animals

Pascal, a chameleon

Maximus, a stallion

Other Characters

Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi)

Stabbington Brothers (Ron Perlman)

Hook-Hand Thug (Brad Garrett)

Big Nose Thug (Jeffrey Tambor)

Vlad (Richard Kiel)

Captain of the Guard (MC Gainey)

Book Beginning

No, Wanted Poster instead

Source

Rapunzel, popularised by the Brothers Grimm (1812)

Songs:

Music by Alan Menken with lyrics by Glenn Slater:

'Flower Gleam and Glow'

'When Will My Life Begin'

'Mother Knows Best'

'I've Got a Dream'

'I See the Light'

Sequels

Tangled Ever After (2012 short)

This film began as a traditionally animated project, only to be changed to CGI under the reign of Michael Eisner, Disney's Chief Executive from 1984 to 2005. The film's title Tangled was chosen to be deliberately gender-neutral, as Disney's marketing department felt that one of the reasons that The Princess and the Frog (2009) had not been as profitable as had been hoped was because it had the word 'princess' in the title.

The first 3D Disney musical, it became their most commercially successful film since The Lion King and proved that the previous policy of avoiding princesses and fairy tales was flawed.

51. Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Directors

Stephen Anderson & Don Hall

Plot

Pooh has run out of hunny, Eeyore has lost his tail and Christopher Robin is missing. He has left a note saying he will be 'Back Soon', but Pooh and his friends misinterpret this, believing he has been kidnapped by a monster they call the 'Backson'.

The last traditionally animated Disney film to date. Winnie-the-Pooh had long been Disney's second most successful set of characters, after Mickey Mouse and his friends. Yet in the early 21st Century it was suggested that they were losing popularity, and so it was decided to make a new film featuring them to combat that.

Uniquely the film is true to AA Milne's vision of the characters. His original stories are the inspiration for the storyline and many of the film's personnel spent time in Ashdown Forest visiting the area where the real Christopher Robin Milne had played and grown up, including the genuine Poohsticks Bridge. This ensures that the film looks like the real Ashdown Forest, and not a generic wood; one of The Tigger Movie's weaknesses was that its setting did not look at all like Sussex.

The quest for verisimilitude ensured that an English boy was cast as Christopher Robin; the original The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1977 had featured three different American boys as Christopher Robin, resulting in his voice changing throughout the film. Controversially his appearance has also been changed. Although it is true that the original design for Christopher Robin was the generic Disney boy look of the 1970s-80s2 changing it 35 years later after it has been well-established seems very much like fixing the barn door not only after the horse has bolted, but the land the farm once stood on has since been sold, redeveloped into offices and now the offices have been bulldozed to make way for a supermarket.

As it is based on AA Milne's original stories, part of the plot had inspired a previous Disney Winnie the Pooh feature. In Pooh's Grandest Adventure3, Pooh and his friends misread a note from Christopher Robin saying he has gone to school as a call for help as he is trapped in Skull.

The film was a moderate success, and is very enjoyable. One of the highlights is the music by husband and wife team Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez, which is able to keep to the high standard set by the Sherman brothers in the original. Their music would so impress Disney executives that they would be offered the opportunity to write the songs for an upcoming Disney animated film called Frozen.

52. Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Director

Rich Moore

Plot

The characters in the various games in an amusement arcade are alive and able to interact. Yet Wreck-It Ralph, the villain of a game called Fix-It Felix, Jr, is fed up of being the unpopular bad guy and believes he will gain friends if he can get a medal, just like his game's hero. He sneaks into a first person shoot-em-up game called Hero's Duty, gains the medal but wakes up one of the games' enemies, a Cy-Bug. Ralph, the medal and secretly the Cy-Bug accidentally end up in a sweets-themed racing game called Sugar Rush. There the medal is taken by a glitch called Vanellope, a deleted character who wishes to use it to buy her way into being a playable character. Yet they are unaware of the havoc that the Cy-Bug is causing, and if Ralph does not make it back to his game then Fix-It Felix, Jr will be unplugged.

The animation is very imaginative and detailed, right down to the graffiti on the walls of Game Central Station including the immortal All your base are belong to us. There are numerous hidden cameos and references, such as minor Sugar Rush character Minty Zaki's name being inspired by the name of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Walt Disney's birthday shows as the game's high score.

The film was released exactly 75 years after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The character of King Candy is based on Ed Wynn's portrayal of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

53. Frozen (2013)

Directors

Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee

Plot

Princess Elsa of Arendelle has been born with a curse – she can create snow and ice, but is unable to control her power. After an accident almost kills her younger sister Anna, she locks herself away from the world, painfully shutting out her sister too, who grows up feeling isolated. After the deaths of their parents, Elsa inherits the throne, but on the day of her coronation Anna informs her that she wishes to marry Prince Hans, who she met earlier that day. Elsa loses control of her emotions and power, inadvertently creating an eternal winter. This doesn't help Kristoff and his reindeer Sven, who are trying to make a living in the ice business.

Length

102 minutes

Setting

Arendelle, fictional Scandinavian mediæval kingdom.

Fairy tale Castles

Arendelle's castle and Ice Palace

Perky Princess

Princess Anna (Kristen Bell)

Princess Elsa (Idina Menzel)

Airy Fairy

Grand Pabbie the Troll King (Ciarán Hinds)

Bulda, a troll (Maia Wilson)

Animated Animals

Sven, a reindeer

Other Characters

Kristoff, an iceman (Jonathan Groff)

Olaf, a snowman (Josh Gad)

Hans, Prince of the Southern Isles (Santino Fontana)

Duke of Weselton (Alan Tudyk)

Source

Inspired by The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson (1845)

Songs:

By husband and wife team Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez

'Frozen Heart'

'Do You Want to Build a Snowman?'

'For the First Time in Forever'

'Love is an Open Door'

'Let It Go'

'Reindeers are Better than People'

'In Summer'

'Fixer Upper'

Sequels

Frozen Fever (2015 short)

Frozen is the most successful animated film to date and won two Oscars - one for Best Animated Film and the other for Best Original Song for 'Let It Go'. Frozen, released in winter 2013, was still in cinemas the following Christmas, having had an almost unbelievable appeal to the under 10s throughout 2014. Soft play centres offered Frozen-themed parties, the names 'Elsa', 'Olaf' and 'Kristoff' appeared on the '100 most popular baby names list' and Frozen dolls were the must-have Christmas toy. A Broadway musical is in development.

It is funny how, in the film, everyone is convinced that they are suffering from an eternal winter after only a few hours. For a film which repeatedly states that you cannot truly love someone after only a day, it seems odd for it to declare that the cold spell will last forever within that same time span.

In 2014 Sing-Along Frozen was released. This was essentially a version with subtitles - it has a snowflake utilising the bouncing-ball technique first created by Fleischer Studios for their Song Cartoons series in 1925. Although a large proportion of the target audience for this was too young to be able to read the subtitles, this did not prevent their enthusiasm in joining in and singing the songs, regardless of whether they knew what the actual words were. The film had first been introduced with a comic teaser trailer showing an encounter in which Sven tries to eat Olaf's carrot nose.

54. Big Hero 6 (2014)

Directors

Don Hall & Chris Williams

Plot

Child genius Hiro Hamada is inspired by his older brother to use his talents for science. Tragically his brother dies in a lab accident shortly after perfecting a robotic nurse named Baymax. After uncovering circumstances that suggest his brother’s death was no accident, Hiro enrols Baymax and his brother's closest friends as a superhero team in order to cope with his grief.

This film gave Disney a second Best Animated Film Oscar win in a row. Like Baymax itself, Big Hero 6 is a film with a heart. After the last film, in which two orphaned sisters learn to love each other, this one tackles brotherly love between orphans and the stages of grief. The film's appearance is breath-taking too, especially the setting, which is a Japanese-influenced version of San Francisco that gives a new and unique appearance to a city familiar from countless films.

Marvel Entertainment had been purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2009, leading to Disney expressing increased interest in releasing film adaptations of Marvel characters especially as Marvel Studios had been enjoying considerable success with the Avengers films since 2008. By choosing a more obscure character for their first adaptation, Disney had the freedom to make several changes from the original comics, perhaps most noticeably to Baymax's appearance. An image of Marvel mastermind Stan Lee appears as a painting of Fred's father.

DisneyToon Studios

DisneyToon Studios, which had previously specialised in making sequels to popular Disney films before the appointment of John Lasseter, now continued to produce films based on their Tinker Bell franchise, also known as Disney Fairies. They also created a new franchise inspired by Pixar's Cars films. These, Planes and Planes: Fire & Rescue followed the adventures of a small propeller-driven crop-dusting aeroplane that initially wishes to enter air races and later qualifies as a firefighting aircraft.

Co-Productions and Others

Mars Needs Moms (2011) - ImageMovers Digital

Gnomeo and Juliet (2011) - Rocket Pictures

Frankenweenie (2012) - A Disney Presentation

Arjun: The Warrior Prince (2012) - UTV

ImageMovers had been founded in 1997 by Robert Zemeckis and concentrated on mo-cap6 films. These included The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006) and Beowulf (2007) for Warner Brothers, Columbia and Paramount respectively. Disney formed a joint enterprise with them entitled ImageMovers Digital, releasing a 3D adaptation of A Christmas Carol in 2009 starring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge. Following this success, their second joint production was Mars Needs Moms, a film that cost approximately $150 million to make. Mums, however, felt no need to bring their families to see the film, so it clawed back less than $40 million at the box office, placing it in the top five biggest box office losses of all time and Disney's biggest failure. Disney immediately severed all ties with ImageMovers, despite having previously announced the partnership had planned to make a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel/remake and a controversial Yellow Submarine remake. Both projects were now abandoned.

Frankenweenie is a far more accomplished film, a black-and-white stop-motion 3D film remake of Tim Burton's 1984 short film that parodies Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This is the third stop-motion film Disney have released, all of which involved Tim Burton, who also made Corpse Bride (2005) for Warner Bros. Curiously, Frankenweenie was billed as a 'Disney Presentation' rather than by Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Released through Disney's Touchstone Pictures label, Gnomeo and Juliet is a very enjoyable film financed by Disney but produced by Elton John's company Rocket Pictures. A garden gnome retelling of Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet, it features many of Elton John's song.

UTV, United Television, was an Indian television company founded in 1990 and purchased by Disney in 2011. In 2012 they made an animated adaptation in Hindi of Indian epic The Mahabharata entitled Arjun: The Warrior Prince. This film, which has had a limited release outside India, followed Arjun from his childhood until adulthood.

Pixar

In 2006, Disney had purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion. Although Pixar remained an independent production company, all Pixar films made since then have been marketed as by 'Disney | Pixar'

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Cars 2 (2011)

Brave (2012)

Monsters University (2013)

Pixar continued their run of success. Three of the four films released in this period were sequels7, with the only original film, Brave, using (though inverting) the well-established Disney princess formula. Despite this none of the films are mere retreads of what has been before, each taking the characters in entirely new directions.

1An actress - she played Trillian in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film.2Aside from hair, eye and skin colour, the appearance of Mowgli, Wart, Christopher Robin and Taran are very similar.3Also known as Pooh's Grand Adventure and The Search for Christopher Robin.4Also The Secret of the Wings.5Also The Pirate Fairy.6Motion-capture, where an actor's facial expressions and body movement are replicated on a computer-generated character, rather than programmed by an animation artist. Also known as Performance Capture.7Technically speaking Monsters University is a prequel, however it is still a film based on already established characters.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."